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February 22, 2014 -- Karen G., ISB
Earth Girl by Janet Edwards
Grades 9-12. Tired of bitter, angst-ridden heroines and their associated dark dystopias? Look no further than Edwards’ refreshing debut, set in the darn-near-utopian universe of 2788 and starring a confident, motormouthed, giggly 18-year-old named Jarra. She’s Handicapped (an ape if you’re rude), the one-in-a-thousand born with a condition that doesn’t allow her to portal outside of Earth. And who wants to hang around boring old Earth? Nobody, unless you’re studying prehistory. So Jarra conspires to join a first-year college archaeology course of off-world teens to prove that an ape can sift through the ruins of New York City just as well, or better, than any privileged Betan or Deltan or Gamman. Make no mistake, this is hard sf (though not painfully hard) that largely forgoes heart-pounding drama in favor of fascinating technicalities and flawless world logic. Yes, there is a romance, but it’s far from the swooning sort: Jarra comes to respect the otherworld norms she has set out to shock and soon is considering boy and girling with Fian, or even entering with him into a Twoing contract. If these patient, intelligent particulars are making your eyes glaze over, that’s because they’re all too rarely found on Planet YA. As Jarra would (loudly) say, this book is totally zan!
Wringer by Andrew Smith
Ryan Dean West is a fourteen-year-old boy at a boarding school for rich kids. He's living in Opportunity Hall, the dorm for troublemakers, and rooming with the biggest bully on the rugby team. And he's madly in love with his best friend Annie, who thinks of him as a little boy.
February 18, 2014 -- Jeri H, WAB
We Need New Names, by NoViolet Bulawayo (June, 2013) For 10th grade and up.
An engaging, but frequently disturbing first novel. Semi-autobiographical, Names being with narrator 10-year old Darling in the slums of Zimbabwe where she faces hunger, poverty, abusive adults, murderous police and privileged colonials, but always with the dream of going to her aunt in America. Of course, eventually she gets there and discovers that, for the immigrant (legal or otherwise) America is not the land of hope and freedom she had always dreamed it to be. The narrative style can be a bit disjointed, but scenes are vividly, sometimes shockingly depicted as Bulawayo holds nothing back in her look at poverty's brutalization of children and adults both.
February 17, 2014 - Nadine, ISB
Half Bad by Sally Green (2014) - fantasy Black and white, good and evil. Is it really that straightforward? For 16-year-old Nathan, it is not; he is neither. Born the illegitimate son of a white witch mother and a black witch father, he is a Half Code, kept in a cage, beaten regularly, and toughened up for when he turns 17 and receives his three gifts. Both black and white witches want him, hoping he will lead them to his father, the most powerful, evil, and reviled of all black witches. Both plan for Nathan to fulfill his vision and their ultimate goal: he will kill his father. But Nathan has no desire to kill anyone; he wants only to escape his shackles and gain his freedom. First-time author Green has written the first in what looks to be a horrifying, compelling trilogy that pushes the boundaries of what we believe to be good and evil. With racial overtones of such diverse titles as Roots (1976); Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852); Run, Boy, Run (2003); and the Harry Potter books, this will stretch the reader’s tolerance for graphic torture while mesmerizing with mystery and heart-stopping adventure. Nathan’s survival is tenuous and marvelous—and only just beginning. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Green’s debut was optioned for film by Fox 2000, and rights have been sold in 27 countries. If that’s not enough, an extensive national marketing campaign is in the works.
January 29, 2013 - Karen G. - ISB
The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion (Australian author)
Genetics professor Don Tillman’s ordered, predictable life is thrown into chaos when love enters the equation in this immensely enjoyable novel. Never good with social cues, Don explains his difficulty empathizing with others, which he forthrightly says is a defining symptom of the autism spectrum, as a result of his brain simply being wired differently. Diagnosis is not the issue here, as the reader is rooting for Don as he searches for ways to fit in. With his fortieth birthday approaching, he designs a questionnaire to find a compatible female life partner using his overriding devotion to logic. But he finds his quest competing with the request of a woman to discover the identity of her biological father. The protagonist is passingly similar to that of Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (2003), but Simsion’s first novel is not as dark, focusing instead on the humor and significance of what makes us human. Don is used to causing amusement or consternation in others, but as his self-awareness and understanding grow, so do his efforts to behave more appropriately. Determined and unintentionally sweet, Don embarks on an optimistic and redemptive journey. Funny, touching, and hard to put down, The Rosie Project is certain to entertain even as readers delve into deep themes. For a book about a logic-based quest for love, it has a lot of heart. Just One Evil Act by Elizabeth George
Library Journal (August 1, 2013)
The newest installment in George's Inspector Lynley series picks up directly where Believing the Lie left off. Taymullah Azhar, Sgt. Barbara Havers's friend and neighbor, has come home to an empty house. His girlfriend, Angelina, has left with their daughter, Hadiyyah, leaving no trace. Azhar has no official parental rights to Haddiyah, as he and Angelina never married. Barbara helps Azhar hire a private investigator to try to locate Angelina and Hadiyyah. Several months later, Angelina returns. She and Hadiyyah have been living in Lucca, Italy, with Angelina's Italian lover. Now Angelina claims that Hadiyyah has been kidnapped and that Azhar is behind it. In a first for George, much of the action takes place in Tuscany, with Barbara's partner, Insp. Thomas Lynley, acting as a liaison officer for Angelina and Azhar during the search for their daughter. Barbara plays the starring role in the other half of the narrative, and the reader is caught up in just how quickly she goes off the rails, professionally and ethically, in the name of friendship. VERDICT This is a must for fans of this series. The twists and turns are vintage George and do not disappoint. How to Fake a Moon Landing: exposing the myths of science denial by Darryl Cunningham (Graphic Novel)
Booklist (April 15, 2013 (Vol. 109, No. 16))
The U.S. edition of what in Britain is called Science Tales (to conform with Cunningham’s Psychiatric Tales, 2011) consists of lively, plain-language debunkings of seven cases of quack or fraudulent science and, in the last chapter, antiscientific bias in general. The belief that the Apollo 11 moon expedition was a hoax, the “alternative” medicines known as homeopathy and chiropractic, the scare about the MMR vaccine inducing autism, arguments against evolution, apologies for fracking, and denying human involvement in rapid climate change are the seven “myths” Cunningham exposes. The text, while never failing to point up the dangers of believing the seven, is economical as can be, which well suits Cunningham’s bare-bones, glorified stick-figure drawing style. Besides stylized use of color—some chapters are all in similar tones (greens, blues), others in more contrasting shades (blue and red, orange and blue)—Cunningham uses plenty of tonally altered (but recognizable) photos to keep the uniformly six-panel pages looking good. The last four pages list, chapter-by-chapter, the print and web sources Cunningham consulted. Teatime for the Firefly by Shona Patel (romance, historical fiction, India setting)
Because she is born under an unlucky star, Layla Roy fully expects to forgo marriage in favor of following in her grandfather Dadamoshai’s footsteps to help increase educational opportunities for women in India in the 1940s. However, when Layla unexpectedly bumps into Manik Deb, an Anglo-educated Indian who has stopped by her grandfather’s home to leave a message, she begins to think there might be more to life than teaching. If only Manik weren’t betrothed to another woman in the village. When Manik gives up a lucrative civil-service post to take up a job as an assistant manager of a tea plantation in Assam, however, the possibility of a future with Layla suddenly seems within his grasp. Patel’s remarkable debut effortlessly transports readers back to India on the brink of independence, while intriguing details about the tea industry in Assam, which Patel deftly incorporates into the story, add yet another layer of richness and depth. Fans of romantic women’s fiction will be enchanted by Teatime for the Firefly’s enthralling characters, exotic setting, and evocative writing style.
(2 Books) Boxers, Saints both by Fene Luen Yang (graphic novel) (China connection is strong)
Kirkus Reviews starred (August 15, 2013)
Printz Award winner Yang's ambitious two-volume graphic novel follows the intertwined lives of two young people on opposite sides of the turn-of-the-20th-century Boxer Rebellion. Little Bao, whose story is told in Boxers, grows up fascinated by the opera's colorful traditional tales and filled with reverence for the local deities. Appalled by the arrogant behavior of foreign soldiers, Christian missionaries and their Chinese supporters, he eventually becomes a leader of the Society of the Righteous and Harmonious Fist, fighting under the slogan "Support the Ch'ing! Destroy the Foreigner!" The protagonist of Saints--an unlucky, unwanted, unnamed fourth daughter--is known only as Four-Girl until she's christened Vibiana upon her conversion to Catholicism. Beaten by her family for her beliefs, she finds refuge and friendship with foreign missionaries, making herself a target for the Boxers. Scrupulously researched, the narratives make a violent conflict rarely studied in U.S. schools feel immediate, as Yang balances historical detail with humor and magical realism. Ch'in Shih-huang, the first emperor of China, and Joan of Arc serve as Bao's and Vibiana's respective spiritual guides; the rich hues of the protagonists' visions, provided by colorist Lark Pien, contrast effectively with the muted earth tones of their everyday lives. The restrained script often, and wisely, lets Yang's clear, clean art speak for itself. This tour de force fearlessly asks big questions about culture, faith, and identity and refuses to offer simple answers
January 12 2013 - Nadine R. - ISB Eleanor & Park - Rainbow Rowell (2012) - school fiction/romance Booklist starred (January 1, 2013 (Vol. 109, No. 9)) Grades 9-12. Right from the start of this tender debut, readers can almost hear the clock winding down on Eleanor and Park. After a less than auspicious start, the pair quietly builds a relationship while riding the bus to school every day, wordlessly sharing comics and eventually music on the commute. Their worlds couldn’t be more different. Park’s family is idyllic: his Vietnam vet father and Korean immigrant mother are genuinely loving. Meanwhile, Eleanor and her younger siblings live in poverty under the constant threat of Richie, their abusive and controlling stepfather, while their mother inexplicably caters to his whims. The couple’s personal battles are also dark mirror images. Park struggles with the realities of falling for the school outcast; in one of the more subtle explorations of race and the other in recent YA fiction, he clashes with his father over the definition of manhood. Eleanor’s fight is much more external, learning to trust her feelings about Park and navigating the sexual threat in Richie’s watchful gaze. In rapidly alternating narrative voices, Eleanor and Park try to express their all-consuming love. You make me feel like a cannibal, Eleanor says. The pure, fear-laced, yet steadily maturing relationship they develop is urgent, moving, and, of course, heartbreaking, too.
January 6, 2013 - Nadine R. - ISB The Ocean at the End of the Lane - Neil Gaiman (2013) - Fantasy Starred Review* In Gaiman’s first novel for adults since Anansi Boys (2005), the never-named fiftyish narrator is back in his childhood homeland, rural Sussex, England, where he’s just delivered the eulogy at a funeral. With “an hour or so to kill” afterward, he drives about—aimlessly, he thinks—until he’s at the crucible of his consciousness: a farmhouse with a duck pond. There, when he was seven, lived the Hempstocks, a crone, a housewife, and an 11-year-old girl, who said they were grandmother, mother, and daughter. Now, he finds the crone and, eventually, the housewife—the same ones, unchanged—while the girl is still gone, just as she was at the end of the childhood adventure he recalls in a reverie that lasts all afternoon. He remembers how he became the vector for a malign force attempting to invade and waste our world. The three Hempstocks are guardians, from time almost immemorial, situated to block such forces and, should that fail, fight them. Gaiman mines mythological typology—the three-fold goddess, the water of life (the pond, actually an ocean)—and his own childhood milieu to build the cosmology and the theater of a story he tells more gracefully than any he’s told since Stardust (1999). And don’t worry about that “for adults” designation: it’s a matter of tone. This lovely yarn is good for anyone who can read it. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: That this is the popular author’s first book for adults in eight years pretty much sums up why this will be in demand. --Ray Olson
From Amazon: In 2007, the Center for Automation in Nanobiotech (CAN) outlined the hardware and software platform that would one day allow robots smaller than human cells to make medical diagnoses, conduct repairs, and even self-propagate. In the same year, the CBS network re-aired a program about the effects of propranolol on sufferers of extreme trauma. A simple pill, it had been discovered, could wipe out the memory of any traumatic event. At almost the same moment in humanity's broad history, mankind had discovered the means for bringing about its utter downfall. And the ability to forget it ever happened. This is the sequel to the New York Times bestselling WOOL series. From Reading Time:This series of books began life as ebook short stories. The clamour for more from readers led to Howey compiling the stories into (so far) two omnibuses, with another scheduled for release later this year. The sci-fi world is complicated but mostly rigorous, and originally compelling. Each silo seems to have its own story, so the guess is that there will be more for fans. Recommended for readers of sci-fi.
To the People, Food is Heaven, by Audra Ang (2012) - Memoir
From Amazon: In China, the world’s next superpower, life is comfortable for the fortunate few. For others, it’s a hand-to-mouth struggle for a full stomach, a place to live, wages for work done, and freedom to speak openly. In a place where few things are more important than food, “Have you eaten yet?” is another way of saying hello. After traversing the country and meeting its people, Ang shares her delicious experiences with us. She tells of a clandestine cup of salty yak butter tea with a Tibetan monk during a military crackdown and explains how a fluffy spring onion omelet encapsulates China’s drive for rural development. You’ll have lunch with some of the country's most enduring activists, savor meals with earthquake survivors, and get to know a house cleaner who makes the best fried chicken in all of Beijing. Ang bites into the gaping divide between rich and poor, urban and rural reform, intolerance for dissent, and the growing dissatisfaction with those in power. By serving these topics to us one at a time, To the People, Food Is Heaven provides a fresh perspective beyond the country’s anonymous identity as an economic powerhouse. Ang plates a terrific, wide-ranging feast that is the new China. Have you eaten yet?
How to post a nomination
February 22, 2014 -- Karen G., ISB
Earth Girl by Janet Edwards
Booklist starred (May 15, 2013 (Vol. 109, No. 18))
Grades 9-12. Tired of bitter, angst-ridden heroines and their associated dark dystopias? Look no further than Edwards’ refreshing debut, set in the darn-near-utopian universe of 2788 and starring a confident, motormouthed, giggly 18-year-old named Jarra. She’s Handicapped (an ape if you’re rude), the one-in-a-thousand born with a condition that doesn’t allow her to portal outside of Earth. And who wants to hang around boring old Earth? Nobody, unless you’re studying prehistory. So Jarra conspires to join a first-year college archaeology course of off-world teens to prove that an ape can sift through the ruins of New York City just as well, or better, than any privileged Betan or Deltan or Gamman. Make no mistake, this is hard sf (though not painfully hard) that largely forgoes heart-pounding drama in favor of fascinating technicalities and flawless world logic. Yes, there is a romance, but it’s far from the swooning sort: Jarra comes to respect the otherworld norms she has set out to shock and soon is considering boy and girling with Fian, or even entering with him into a Twoing contract. If these patient, intelligent particulars are making your eyes glaze over, that’s because they’re all too rarely found on Planet YA. As Jarra would (loudly) say, this book is totally zan!Wringer by Andrew Smith
Ryan Dean West is a fourteen-year-old boy at a boarding school for rich kids. He's living in Opportunity Hall, the dorm for troublemakers, and rooming with the biggest bully on the rugby team. And he's madly in love with his best friend Annie, who thinks of him as a little boy.
February 18, 2014 -- Jeri H, WAB
We Need New Names, by NoViolet Bulawayo (June, 2013)
For 10th grade and up.
An engaging, but frequently disturbing first novel. Semi-autobiographical, Names being with narrator 10-year old Darling in the slums of Zimbabwe where she faces hunger, poverty, abusive adults, murderous police and privileged colonials, but always with the dream of going to her aunt in America. Of course, eventually she gets there and discovers that, for the immigrant (legal or otherwise) America is not the land of hope and freedom she had always dreamed it to be. The narrative style can be a bit disjointed, but scenes are vividly, sometimes shockingly depicted as Bulawayo holds nothing back in her look at poverty's brutalization of children and adults both.
February 17, 2014 - Nadine, ISB
Half Bad by Sally Green (2014) - fantasy
Black and white, good and evil. Is it really that straightforward? For 16-year-old Nathan, it is not; he is neither. Born the illegitimate son of a white witch mother and a black witch father, he is a Half Code, kept in a cage, beaten regularly, and toughened up for when he turns 17 and receives his three gifts. Both black and white witches want him, hoping he will lead them to his father, the most powerful, evil, and reviled of all black witches. Both plan for Nathan to fulfill his vision and their ultimate goal: he will kill his father. But Nathan has no desire to kill anyone; he wants only to escape his shackles and gain his freedom. First-time author Green has written the first in what looks to be a horrifying, compelling trilogy that pushes the boundaries of what we believe to be good and evil. With racial overtones of such diverse titles as Roots (1976); Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852); Run, Boy, Run (2003); and the Harry Potter books, this will stretch the reader’s tolerance for graphic torture while mesmerizing with mystery and heart-stopping adventure. Nathan’s survival is tenuous and marvelous—and only just beginning. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Green’s debut was optioned for film by Fox 2000, and rights have been sold in 27 countries. If that’s not enough, an extensive national marketing campaign is in the works.
January 29, 2013 - Karen G. - ISB
The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion (Australian author)
Genetics professor Don Tillman’s ordered, predictable life is thrown into chaos when love enters the equation in this immensely enjoyable novel. Never good with social cues, Don explains his difficulty empathizing with others, which he forthrightly says is a defining symptom of the autism spectrum, as a result of his brain simply being wired differently. Diagnosis is not the issue here, as the reader is rooting for Don as he searches for ways to fit in. With his fortieth birthday approaching, he designs a questionnaire to find a compatible female life partner using his overriding devotion to logic. But he finds his quest competing with the request of a woman to discover the identity of her biological father. The protagonist is passingly similar to that of Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (2003), but Simsion’s first novel is not as dark, focusing instead on the humor and significance of what makes us human. Don is used to causing amusement or consternation in others, but as his self-awareness and understanding grow, so do his efforts to behave more appropriately. Determined and unintentionally sweet, Don embarks on an optimistic and redemptive journey. Funny, touching, and hard to put down, The Rosie Project is certain to entertain even as readers delve into deep themes. For a book about a logic-based quest for love, it has a lot of heart.
Just One Evil Act by Elizabeth George
Library Journal (August 1, 2013)
The newest installment in George's Inspector Lynley series picks up directly where Believing the Lie left off. Taymullah Azhar, Sgt. Barbara Havers's friend and neighbor, has come home to an empty house. His girlfriend, Angelina, has left with their daughter, Hadiyyah, leaving no trace. Azhar has no official parental rights to Haddiyah, as he and Angelina never married. Barbara helps Azhar hire a private investigator to try to locate Angelina and Hadiyyah. Several months later, Angelina returns. She and Hadiyyah have been living in Lucca, Italy, with Angelina's Italian lover. Now Angelina claims that Hadiyyah has been kidnapped and that Azhar is behind it. In a first for George, much of the action takes place in Tuscany, with Barbara's partner, Insp. Thomas Lynley, acting as a liaison officer for Angelina and Azhar during the search for their daughter. Barbara plays the starring role in the other half of the narrative, and the reader is caught up in just how quickly she goes off the rails, professionally and ethically, in the name of friendship. VERDICT This is a must for fans of this series. The twists and turns are vintage George and do not disappoint.How to Fake a Moon Landing: exposing the myths of science denial by Darryl Cunningham (Graphic Novel)
Booklist (April 15, 2013 (Vol. 109, No. 16))
The U.S. edition of what in Britain is called Science Tales (to conform with Cunningham’s Psychiatric Tales, 2011) consists of lively, plain-language debunkings of seven cases of quack or fraudulent science and, in the last chapter, antiscientific bias in general. The belief that the Apollo 11 moon expedition was a hoax, the “alternative” medicines known as homeopathy and chiropractic, the scare about the MMR vaccine inducing autism, arguments against evolution, apologies for fracking, and denying human involvement in rapid climate change are the seven “myths” Cunningham exposes. The text, while never failing to point up the dangers of believing the seven, is economical as can be, which well suits Cunningham’s bare-bones, glorified stick-figure drawing style. Besides stylized use of color—some chapters are all in similar tones (greens, blues), others in more contrasting shades (blue and red, orange and blue)—Cunningham uses plenty of tonally altered (but recognizable) photos to keep the uniformly six-panel pages looking good. The last four pages list, chapter-by-chapter, the print and web sources Cunningham consulted.Teatime for the Firefly by Shona Patel (romance, historical fiction, India setting)
Booklist starred (September 15, 2013 (Vol. 110, No. 2))
Because she is born under an unlucky star, Layla Roy fully expects to forgo marriage in favor of following in her grandfather Dadamoshai’s footsteps to help increase educational opportunities for women in India in the 1940s. However, when Layla unexpectedly bumps into Manik Deb, an Anglo-educated Indian who has stopped by her grandfather’s home to leave a message, she begins to think there might be more to life than teaching. If only Manik weren’t betrothed to another woman in the village. When Manik gives up a lucrative civil-service post to take up a job as an assistant manager of a tea plantation in Assam, however, the possibility of a future with Layla suddenly seems within his grasp. Patel’s remarkable debut effortlessly transports readers back to India on the brink of independence, while intriguing details about the tea industry in Assam, which Patel deftly incorporates into the story, add yet another layer of richness and depth. Fans of romantic women’s fiction will be enchanted by Teatime for the Firefly’s enthralling characters, exotic setting, and evocative writing style.(2 Books) Boxers, Saints both by Fene Luen Yang (graphic novel) (China connection is strong)
Kirkus Reviews starred (August 15, 2013)
Printz Award winner Yang's ambitious two-volume graphic novel follows the intertwined lives of two young people on opposite sides of the turn-of-the-20th-century Boxer Rebellion. Little Bao, whose story is told in Boxers, grows up fascinated by the opera's colorful traditional tales and filled with reverence for the local deities. Appalled by the arrogant behavior of foreign soldiers, Christian missionaries and their Chinese supporters, he eventually becomes a leader of the Society of the Righteous and Harmonious Fist, fighting under the slogan "Support the Ch'ing! Destroy the Foreigner!" The protagonist of Saints--an unlucky, unwanted, unnamed fourth daughter--is known only as Four-Girl until she's christened Vibiana upon her conversion to Catholicism. Beaten by her family for her beliefs, she finds refuge and friendship with foreign missionaries, making herself a target for the Boxers. Scrupulously researched, the narratives make a violent conflict rarely studied in U.S. schools feel immediate, as Yang balances historical detail with humor and magical realism. Ch'in Shih-huang, the first emperor of China, and Joan of Arc serve as Bao's and Vibiana's respective spiritual guides; the rich hues of the protagonists' visions, provided by colorist Lark Pien, contrast effectively with the muted earth tones of their everyday lives. The restrained script often, and wisely, lets Yang's clear, clean art speak for itself. This tour de force fearlessly asks big questions about culture, faith, and identity and refuses to offer simple answersJanuary 12 2013 - Nadine R. - ISB
Eleanor & Park - Rainbow Rowell (2012) - school fiction/romance
Booklist starred (January 1, 2013 (Vol. 109, No. 9))
Grades 9-12. Right from the start of this tender debut, readers can almost hear the clock winding down on Eleanor and Park. After a less than auspicious start, the pair quietly builds a relationship while riding the bus to school every day, wordlessly sharing comics and eventually music on the commute. Their worlds couldn’t be more different. Park’s family is idyllic: his Vietnam vet father and Korean immigrant mother are genuinely loving. Meanwhile, Eleanor and her younger siblings live in poverty under the constant threat of Richie, their abusive and controlling stepfather, while their mother inexplicably caters to his whims. The couple’s personal battles are also dark mirror images. Park struggles with the realities of falling for the school outcast; in one of the more subtle explorations of race and the other in recent YA fiction, he clashes with his father over the definition of manhood. Eleanor’s fight is much more external, learning to trust her feelings about Park and navigating the sexual threat in Richie’s watchful gaze. In rapidly alternating narrative voices, Eleanor and Park try to express their all-consuming love. You make me feel like a cannibal, Eleanor says. The pure, fear-laced, yet steadily maturing relationship they develop is urgent, moving, and, of course, heartbreaking, too.
January 6, 2013 - Nadine R. - ISB
The Ocean at the End of the Lane - Neil Gaiman (2013) - Fantasy
Starred Review* In Gaiman’s first novel for adults since Anansi Boys (2005), the never-named fiftyish narrator is back in his childhood homeland, rural Sussex, England, where he’s just delivered the eulogy at a funeral. With “an hour or so to kill” afterward, he drives about—aimlessly, he thinks—until he’s at the crucible of his consciousness: a farmhouse with a duck pond. There, when he was seven, lived the Hempstocks, a crone, a housewife, and an 11-year-old girl, who said they were grandmother, mother, and daughter. Now, he finds the crone and, eventually, the housewife—the same ones, unchanged—while the girl is still gone, just as she was at the end of the childhood adventure he recalls in a reverie that lasts all afternoon. He remembers how he became the vector for a malign force attempting to invade and waste our world. The three Hempstocks are guardians, from time almost immemorial, situated to block such forces and, should that fail, fight them. Gaiman mines mythological typology—the three-fold goddess, the water of life (the pond, actually an ocean)—and his own childhood milieu to build the cosmology and the theater of a story he tells more gracefully than any he’s told since Stardust (1999). And don’t worry about that “for adults” designation: it’s a matter of tone. This lovely yarn is good for anyone who can read it. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: That this is the popular author’s first book for adults in eight years pretty much sums up why this will be in demand. --Ray Olson
January 8, 2013 - Josianne Fitzgerald - IST
Shift (Omnibus Edition - Silo Saga) - Hugh Howey (2013) - Science Fiction
From Amazon: In 2007, the Center for Automation in Nanobiotech (CAN) outlined the hardware and software platform that would one day allow robots smaller than human cells to make medical diagnoses, conduct repairs, and even self-propagate. In the same year, the CBS network re-aired a program about the effects of propranolol on sufferers of extreme trauma. A simple pill, it had been discovered, could wipe out the memory of any traumatic event. At almost the same moment in humanity's broad history, mankind had discovered the means for bringing about its utter downfall. And the ability to forget it ever happened. This is the sequel to the New York Times bestselling WOOL series.
From Reading Time: This series of books began life as ebook short stories. The clamour for more from readers led to Howey compiling the stories into (so far) two omnibuses, with another scheduled for release later this year. The sci-fi world is complicated but mostly rigorous, and originally compelling. Each silo seems to have its own story, so the guess is that there will be more for fans. Recommended for readers of sci-fi.
To the People, Food is Heaven, by Audra Ang (2012) - Memoir
From Amazon:
In China, the world’s next superpower, life is comfortable for the fortunate few. For others, it’s a hand-to-mouth struggle for a full stomach, a place to live, wages for work done, and freedom to speak openly. In a place where few things are more important than food, “Have you eaten yet?” is another way of saying hello. After traversing the country and meeting its people, Ang shares her delicious experiences with us. She tells of a clandestine cup of salty yak butter tea with a Tibetan monk during a military crackdown and explains how a fluffy spring onion omelet encapsulates China’s drive for rural development. You’ll have lunch with some of the country's most enduring activists, savor meals with earthquake survivors, and get to know a house cleaner who makes the best fried chicken in all of Beijing. Ang bites into the gaping divide between rich and poor, urban and rural reform, intolerance for dissent, and the growing dissatisfaction with those in power. By serving these topics to us one at a time, To the People, Food Is Heaven provides a fresh perspective beyond the country’s anonymous identity as an economic powerhouse. Ang plates a terrific, wide-ranging feast that is the new China. Have you eaten yet?